The new GIF maker is accessible via the Facebook Camera, and appears as an option at the top of the screen. Once you finish shooting, you can then save in GIF format and post to your profile, add to your Facebook Story, or even save it to your phone’s camera roll.

Everybody agrees that GIFs are a fast-growing trend on all social media platforms. And now, Facebook is working hard to catch up on platforms like Twitter or Tumblr, where GIFs have been hugely popular and freely available to use. For many years, Facebook had stopped users from sharing GIFs, and it was not until 2015 that the platform began supporting them via third-party services like GIPHY. And it was only recently that direct uploads were finally permitted – after also allowing GIFs in comments.

Facebook always claimed that it held off allowing GIFs because it would create a “chaotic” experience for users. However, many thought the company had chosen to focus on video instead, because it was easier to monetise. Today the company acknowledged the trend: almost 13 billion GIFs were sent on Messenger over the past 12 months.

The new GIF-making feature is only available to a select few for the moment, but Facebook confirmed it should roll out to more users soon.

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Geoff is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of We are Social Media. He also leads the Social Media team at Zimmerman, an Omnicom agency based out of South Florida, USA. Geoff is also a visiting lecturer at Universities across Europe and the US, and an international #smm speaker.